The US, South Korea and Japan staged joint naval defense drills off the Korean Peninsula on Tuesday. 

Meanwhile, North Korea's Kim Jong Un blamed the three countries for increasing nuclear tensions in the region in a Navy Day speech to assembled sailors in Pyongyang. 

"Owing to the reckless confrontational moves of the US and other hostile forces, the waters off of the Korean Peninsula have been reduced into the world's biggest war hardware concentration spot, the most unstable waters with the danger of nuclear war," North Korean state news agency KCNA on Tuesday cited Kim as saying.

According to North Korean authorities, the actual event took place on Sunday. As usual, independent journalists were not allowed to attend in the secretive state.

Kim says Navy to become part of 'nuclear deterrent'

Kim was speaking before the US, Japan and South Korea staged joint naval missile defense drills off of South Korea's southern Jeju island, to improve their ability to detect and track targets, and share information in the event of a provocation by Pyongyang. 

Leaders of the three countries met earlier this month at Camp David, the first standalone trilateral summit of its kind, agreeing to hold annual trilateral military exercises and to implement real-time sharing of information on North Korea's frequent missile launches and tests. 

Kim referred to US President Joe Biden, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida as the "gang bosses" of the countries. 

"The prevailing situation requires our navy to put all its efforts into rounding off the war readiness to maintain the constant combat alertness and get prepared to break the enemy's will for war in contingency," Kim told assembled navy personnel in Pyongyang.

Kim has called for "radically" upgrading the country's naval weapons and equipment, and on Tuesday KCNA reported he said it should become part of the "state nuclear deterrence." 

More and bigger drills, after NK ramped up its own activities

North Korea has conducted more than 100 weapons tests since early 2022, most of them defying UN sanctions and some of them testing long-range nuclear-capable missiles designed to be able to reach the US mainland.

This has, in turn, prompted increased activity from the US, Japan and South Korea and enhanced "regular visibility" of US strategic assets in the region — perhaps most notably by deploying a nuclear-armed submarine to the region in July, for the first time in decades. 

Washington, Tokyo and Seoul describe their military activity as defensive in nature and blame Pyongyang's repeated transgressions for their heightened activity. North Korea, meanwhile, categorizes the military exercises as rehearsals for invasion. 

The US and South Korean militaries began the 11-day Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises on August 21, with the second phase starting this week. The annual training is a computer-simulated command post exercise, but this year it also included field exercises.

Pyongyang typically responds to such activity with military tests of its own. KCNA claimed on the day the drills began that Kim had observed test-firings of strategic cruise missiles, and last Thursday, North Korea's second attempt to launch a spy satellite into space failed as the first did. 

Kim's presumed daughter on show 

North Korean propaganda images of Kim greeting thousands of naval personnel also appeared to show a young woman believed to be his daughter, and thought to be named Ju Ae, accompanying him at the event.

As with Kim himself, her exact age is not known, though she's thought to be about 10. 

According to South Korean officials, Kim Ju Ae has not been appointed her father's heir.

However, they also believe her public appearance could serve to indicate to people that one of Kim's children would most likely inherit his power one day, as Kim did from his father and grandfather before that. 

msh/ab (AP, Reuters)